To the neighbors, presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s presence on their street is at once unusual and unremarkable: Romney checks the mail. Romney waves hello. Romney comes by in a motorcade. But always with a Secret Service agent. The quiet community of 25,000 has gotten used to the commotion of Romney’s celebrity, and many people in town have a Romney story.

Pictured: A man walked past a supportive sign in Belmont in October.
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The Boston Globe

The Republican presidential candidate has been coming home to Belmont since 1971, when he and Ann moved into a home on Winn Street.

Pictured: Waiter (and student) Alex Skall waited on fellow students at Belmont Hill School during lunch hour in 2002.
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Kayana Szymczak for the Boston Globe

The Romney name hangs on the wall as “Diamond Benefactor” of the senior center where the GOP candidate might cast his vote for president.

Pictured: Isolina Gianino worked on a quilt during a meeting with fellow knitters at the Beech Street Center in 2011.
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Dina Rudick/Globe Staff

If Romney is elected, among his many decisions will be whether to keep serving on Belmont’s Republican Town Committee, where he, Ann, son Taggart and daughter-in-law Jennifer won seats this past March.

Pictured: Voters at the polls in Belmont City Hall precint 2 in 2006.
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AP

Most Romney sightings from afar, glimpses caught at Town Meeting, on voting day, at his sons’ baseball games picking up stray balls. Romney orders the Bolognese at Il Casale in Belmont center.

Pictured: The Romneys arrived at Il Casale restaurant to have dinner in September.
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The Boston Globe

Maryann Scali, a lifelong Belmont resident who just celebrated her 60th high school reunion at Belmont High, remembers Ann Romney’s run for Town Meeting member in the 70s.

“She was in politics before he was!” said Scali, a Town Meeting member herself. Scali remembers Ann going door to door campaigning, hair tied back with a bandana.Pictured: The Belmont Town Hall.
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The Boston Globe

She doesn’t remember Romney’s platform; she does remember her tennis skills.

“We played on the public courts in those days,” she said. “She was a great player.
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Joanne Rathe/Globe Staff

Peggy Vidette longtime owner of "Italian Food Shoppe" on Channing St. has served food to Mitt and his children over the years.
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The Boston Globe

When his boys were teenagers in the 1990s, Romney used to bring them into Rancatore’s Ice Cream for frappes.

Father and sons were always impeccably dressed, and stood out from the shorts and t-shirts-clad clientele. Romney might take his tie off, said owner Joe Rancatore, but he always kept his jacket on.

Pictured: The fifth step in making an ice cream sandwich at Rancatore's Ice Cream.
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Leon has also been cutting the Romney's hair for many years and is responsible for the distinctive coif that locals call "The Mitt."
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Evan Allen/Town Correspondent

After Joe O’Donnell’s young son Joey died of cystic fibrosis, the Romneys showed up at the little boy’s elementary school to help build Joey's Park, a memorial playground constructed in a community barn-raising over the space of a week by hundreds of Belmont residents in 1989.
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Friends of Joey's Park

“I remember Mitt coming in as the best dressed – he had his jeans on, and they were starched," said O’Donnell, noting that Romney has continued to support the park and a fund in Joey’s name.
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Dominic Chavez/Globe Staff

Some of Romney’s deepest roots in Belmont are at the Mormon meeting house and temple where he still attends services when he is in town. Just off the Concord Turnpike, the temple sits at what’s considered by many to be the highest point in Belmont, topped by the Angel Moroni.

Pictured: Senator Ted Kennedy and Mitt Romney touring the Temple of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Belmont.
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Essdras M Suarez/ Globe Staff

Part of the reason the Romney’s moved to Belmont was that the town was becoming known as a place where area Mormons were settling.

In 1982, Romney became the Bishop—equivalent to the pastor—of the local congregation, which included Belmont, Watertown and Waltham. Later, he was elevated to stake leader, in charge of a collection of congregations.
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(Essdras M Suarez/ Globe Staff

“In my view, [steeples] remind us that we were brought here and preserved in this land by (providence),” said Romney, according to Belmont records. “They typify our diversity representing a host of faiths and a host of people. To some they’re like guideposts standing for constant answers in a changing and troubling world. As graffiti begins to corrupt our edifices, even in Belmont, I’ve noticed, I celebrate this physical witness of God’s hand open to all his children.”
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The Boston Globe

Until 2009 when he sold it for $3.5 million, Romney lived in a mansion on Marsh Street on Belmont Hill, a winding, leafy road, lined with spectacular estates set back from the street by long driveways and rustic stone walls.

Political lawn signs are frowned upon here: except for a few scattered bumper stickers favoring Obama, the politics of a Republican presidential candidate in a liberal state are mostly invisible. Residents of the Woodlands are alternately annoyed and amused at questions about Romney.
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AFP/Getty Images

Though Belmont backed Romney in 2002 when he ran for governor, the town didn’t back him when he lost the 1994 US Senate race to Edward M. Kennedy. The last time the town voted for a Republican in the presidential race was in 1980.

Pictured: A motorcade carrying Romney drives through autumn leaves on its way to take him to a hotel for a full day of debate preparation in Belmont in October.
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